Maintained by the ScienceBlogs Overlords, Page 3.14 points you in the direction of some of ScienceBlogs' finest offerings, plus the tastiest tidbits of science news and opinion from around the web.
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Perhaps it's ethical - should companies be able to patent specific genes? Should primates have the same rights in laboratory settings as humans?
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Whatever you've wondered, now is your chance to ask. ScienceBlogs is reinstating our former Ask a ScienceBlogger series, in which (you guessed it), you get to ask ScienceBloggers questions, and they answer them!
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Comments
When I open the dishwasher after washing and the contents are still hot, why do the glass and ceramic items dry off more quickly than the plastic items ?
Posted by: Jim Swanson | May 11, 2010 8:53 PM
My 12-year old has this question:
How big does the world appear to an insect?
Posted by: nemski | May 12, 2010 7:13 AM
How effective are powdered sunscreens like this? For that matter, what about powdered makeup with SPF claims?
Posted by: rienzi0711 | May 12, 2010 8:16 AM
Gah, why didn't the link work?
It's http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P235909&categoryId;=B70
Posted by: rienzi0711 | May 12, 2010 8:18 AM
So how are you letting people outside the science blogging community know about this? I'm sure there are tons of people with questions but don't know about scienceblogs...
Posted by: David Wescott | May 12, 2010 4:04 PM
What's the latest take on the question of whether humans are still evolving? Will medicine and gene manipulation eventually “excuse” us from natural selection?
Posted by: Jean | May 13, 2010 12:57 PM
Jean, natural selection still occurs. It can't NOT occur. Mutations still occur, are still heritable, and are still subject to differential survival of offspring.
It doesn't obviate natural selection, it just changes the pressures under which selection occurs.
Posted by: John | May 13, 2010 3:24 PM
Two questions actually.
Funny you mention salt. I've always had a high intake of salt (even for this society), yet my blood pressure has always been fine. Is there evidence that such a diet has harmful effects beyond hypertension?
Have we any studies showing causation between hypertension and heart disease or is it all correlation at this point?
Posted by: Max | May 13, 2010 3:29 PM
It's said that the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right half of the body and vice versa. Does this apply to the processing of audio and visual stimulus of the ears and eyes as well? Does the left half of the brain process what the right eye sees and vice versa?
Posted by: Tyler | May 13, 2010 6:13 PM
To Tyler - no, they cross at the neck.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 13, 2010 11:27 PM
Hey,
Is there any empirical research accompanied by a cost benefit analysis of fine arts programs compared to athletic programs in public schools?
Thanks!
Posted by: Chris | May 13, 2010 11:47 PM
has anyone done any underwater research in the lakes of the Canadian Shield?i paddle around on those and have wondered if there was anything down there outside of rocks and mud.Mastodon bits,meteorites that may have been on ice sheets and ended up in the lakes,parts of the original Earths crust that were scraped by the glaciers into what are now lake bottoms,who knows what else?
Posted by: scidog | May 14, 2010 12:10 AM
Graphs of global human population regularly depicted in the main-stream media (and most scientific literature for that matter) typically show human population increasing over time with an unlimited upper trajectory. We all konw of course that this is an illusion in that the global population will eventualy peak and start on a downward tend, probably even a precipitous downward spiral. Another missing component of most population graphs is the concept of carrying capacity, also known as "K". K is not a static figure but can trend up or down depending on the health of the global ecosystem. Many would argue that K is on a decidedly downward trend. So we seem to have a situation where the main-stream media continues to portray global population as ever increasing with no consideration of global carrying capacity. How about a little reality check here?
Posted by: Attu de Bubbalot | May 14, 2010 9:03 AM
To Tyler and anonymous. Inputs from the eyes cross over in the brain at the optic chiasm. So the signals from the left eye are interpreted in the right visual cortex, and vice versa. The auditory signals partially cross over in the brainstem and so are perceived on both hemispheres.
Posted by: dsmith | May 14, 2010 9:16 AM
Here's another: What are your thoughts on the use of parabens as preservatives in various cosmetics?
Posted by: rienzi0711 | May 14, 2010 12:34 PM
There are green fishes, reptiles, and birds, but no green mammals. (Yes, sloths can have green algae on their fur, but that doesn't count.) Why/
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | May 14, 2010 7:20 PM
I live in SE Nebraska, where a large Carbonatite deposit is located, and news is breaking about developing the deposit. How is carbonatite mined, refined, and transported? What will this do to the surrounding countryside, which is 100% agricultural, with some remaining virgin prairie.
Posted by: Mom | May 14, 2010 11:12 PM
My burning question is about the 'terminator' mechanism in GM crops. How does this work? I don't really undeerstand the mechanism so my question below may be total stupid.
My understanding is that growing crops need to fertilise sexually to mature and make seeds. I can see easily that, where there are only GM crops exchanging pollen, the offspring seeds will have the terminator genes from both parents, so they wil not be seed stock for next year. What if the GM plant exchanges pollen with a non GM plant?
Posted by: eddie | May 15, 2010 3:10 AM
How is it that CO2, only comprising approx. 0.04% of the atmosphere, has such a huge impact on global climate?
Posted by: Don Rowe | May 15, 2010 3:25 AM
What are the chances that the size, orbit and distances of the Earth, moon and sun would be exactly right for perfect lunar and solar eclipses, and Earth to have the specific tilt it has, which is responsible for the seasons, etc., would happen accidently?
Posted by: Laurence Topliffe | May 16, 2010 2:42 PM
When the moon is at the farthest point in its orbit it is 'too small' do a perfect job of eclipsing the sun. I have observed such an eclipse. All of the orbits, and the earth's tilt, change over time. Or so the astronomers tell us. So enjoy the eclipses and seasons while we can.
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | May 16, 2010 2:47 PM
I know the early Genetic Modification processes involved inserting antibiotic resistance genes as an easy marker for uptake of the GM package.
Do current commercial GM crops include antibiotic resistance genes ? If so, is there a risk of them being picked up by gut bacteria, spreading resistance, or are they in a form that prevents this ?
Posted by: davidp | May 17, 2010 1:13 AM
If the universe is expanding from the big bang, has anyone tried to reverse plot the galaxies to figure out the exact point where the big bang occurred?
Also, since the expansion rate is increasing, has anyone speculated that instead of "dark energy" pushing the galaxies apart that something from outside the known universe might actually being drawn them towards it (e.g., gravity from a universe within which our universe is encapsulated?)
Posted by: George P. Burdell | May 17, 2010 11:00 PM
Astronomers say that galaxy's rotate faster than mathematics predicts they should. They say that some other invisible matter makes galaxy's do this. They call it "Dark Matter". Then they spend billions of dollars looking for invisible weakly interacting particles in mine shafts that just don't exist! They build tunnels under the city of Geneva to smash particles to try find the missing gravity (Higgs boson). But really, the answer is literally staring them in the face!
Knowing full well that electromagnetic radiation (Light), at all wavelengths, has a gravitational effect(small, but it does), astronomers, cosmologists and physicists still ignore this gravitational effect. When calculating the speed of rotation of galaxy's, they completely ignore that simple fact that the stars and galaxy's have been "shining" emitting electromagnetic radiation for 13.7 billion years. The effect is negligible over a short period of time, a few hundred years, but not for 13.7 billion years!
Why???? Why do they completely neglect 13.7 billion years worth of matter that has been converted to energy? How can they neglect all the stars that have been born, shined and died in supernovas? How can they simply ignore the fact that the answer to the dark matter problem is staring them in the face?
John37309.
In Ireland
Posted by: John | May 17, 2010 11:17 PM
My question concerns black holes, one of the more popular theroies is that they are rips in the fabric of space. Meaning that if a craft could survive the gravitational forces it would be spat out somwhere else in the universe. My question is, doesn't the matter simply accrete into an ever larger super dense sphere? Where would this "hole" be? Since there are black holes of different sizes in the universe, it would seem to support the idea that they grow with the matter they suck up and that matter does not go anywhere.
Posted by: Karl | May 18, 2010 12:19 AM
I'm puzzled by the idea of meteoropathy. Is it a true condition? Or is it a myth? Can a change of weather really cause a change of mood and if yes - how?
Posted by: Rafal | May 18, 2010 7:19 AM
I wonder how water evaporate in the ocean..Water evaporates at 100 degree centigrade, and is the temperature of the ocean water 100 degree when it evaporates??or have i misunderstood the process??are evaporation of sea water and vaporization different things??
Posted by: Uday Panta | May 18, 2010 8:55 AM
At the moment of creation, right before the Big Bang, all the matter in the Universe was concentrated into a single, infinitely dense point. Why didn't that produce a black hole?
Posted by: Michael | May 18, 2010 11:28 AM
Uday Panta,
The temperature of water (or anything else), is a measure of the average speed (kinetic energy) of the molecules in it. But it's only an average - the actual speeds of the molecules follow a statistical distribution, called the Boltzmann distribution. This means that even well below 100 degrees centigrade there are some proportion of molecules that gain sufficient kinetic energy and escape liquid water and go into the air.
People normally call this gradual process evaporation. The other process where all of the molecules change to the gas phase when you pass the critical temperature (100 degrees for water) is usually called vaporization.
Posted by: Coriolis | May 19, 2010 4:11 PM
One for the life scientists: The word "reptile" -- should I purge it from my vocabulary? When I was a kid, I knew what a reptile was, but now, birds are dinosaurs (and dinosaurs birds?), crocodilians are archosaurs that are closer to birds than to lizards. Testudines are no closer to lizards and snakes than they are to anything else. And Tuataras are not particularly related to any other scaly, crawly thing.
It seems that I could take a restrictive view and limit "reptile" to lizards and snakes, but then there's that perfectly good word "squamate" that does the job. Or I could take an expansive view, which would mean that modern birds are reptiles, but the whole homeothermic thing makes that questionable.
So, "reptile" -- what's it good for? Or just get rid of it?
Posted by: HP | May 20, 2010 9:27 PM
Before a severe storm, why does the sky sometimes look greenish? How green does it get?
Posted by: Monado, FCD | May 20, 2010 9:45 PM
has anyone ever tried to record or hear the sound of an ant? how does it sounds like?
Posted by: Jero | May 21, 2010 11:05 AM
Jero: Alternate answer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2PLls02gOU
Posted by: Greg Laden | May 21, 2010 2:26 PM
If the Universe is 15 billion years old, and the most distant visible galaxies are 12.8 billion years old, how did those galaxies get all the way over there in only 2.2 billion years, in order to then start their light on its 12.8 billion year journey to Earth? If everything in the universe started from a common point, and those galaxies were travelling at .999 lightspeed directly away from us, they still couldn't have gone 12.8 billion light years in 2.2 billion years.
What gives?
Posted by: Albatross | May 21, 2010 3:08 PM
How do you explain PYGMIES + DWARFS???
Posted by: DwarfPygmy | May 22, 2010 9:12 AM
Deseo tener los e-mail de los científicos más importantes del mundo. Sería genial si tú me las pudieras proporcionar. Un millón de gracias. Pienso revolucionar muchas teorías sobre nuestro universo, pero antes debo consultar con ellos. Recibe adelantadas un millón de años luz de gracias. Fernando Rivera Lazo.
Posted by: Fernando Rivera lazo | May 22, 2010 4:58 PM
Jim Thomerson, there is a natural mutant strain of cats that have some green in their fur. In general, there's no blue pigment in animals that have iron-based (red) blood. The blue color of birds and butterflies is a surface effect that scatters light in wavelengths that we perceive as blue. At least some birds with green feathers combine yellow pigment with 'blue' feather structure. Thus you see yellow, green, or blue parakeets.
In humans, green and blue eyes are accomplished by melanin (dark) particles scattered in the iris at a separation that reflects those wavelengths. Birds' eggs are colored with bile pigments (brown), so I suspect that the greenish or bluish eggs have pigment particles of a certain size, which reflect the wavelength we see. But that's just a guess.
I don't know about lizards, but I suspect it's another surface effect.
Posted by: Monado, FCD | May 23, 2010 1:34 AM
Don Rowe, your clue is in the words "greenhouse effect." A greenhouse stays warm and a car gets hot because light easily passes through glass, but heat doesn't. Light comes in through your windshield. It hits the interior and turns to heat, a much lower wavelength. The windshield is opaque to heat: glass doesn't radiate heat as quickly as metals do. The heat bounces around inside the glass, unable to get out.
Carbon dioxide is also more opaque to heat than either nitrogen or oxygen. So it heats up the earth and we call it a greenhouse gas.
There are other greenhouse gases from industrial processes that are much more efficient at trapping heat and that take more than 40,000 years to break down. We are truly playing with fire.
Posted by: Monado, FCD | May 23, 2010 1:48 AM
George, because we cannot stand outside the galaxy and view it as a whole. From our point of view, the universe is expanding away from us. From any other point of view, the universe would be expanding away in all directions. Think of galaxies as polkadots on a limp balloon. Now blow the balloon so that it gets larger. All the dots move away from each other. None of them is in the center. None of them can stand away from the others and plot where they are going.
Posted by: Monado, FCD | May 23, 2010 1:53 AM
Albatross, if the universe started expanding 15 billion years ago, the galaxies started away from each other then. The most distant ones are too dim for us to see. But of the ones we can see, the light has been on its way to us all along. The images of their older selves have already gone past.
By looking so far away we are seeing them as they were 12.8 billion years ago, in their galactic youth. We are seeing them at 2.2 billion years old (if age of universe = 15 Gigayears). That's why it's so exciting.
Posted by: Monado, FCD | May 23, 2010 2:07 AM
To Anonymous, about Tyler's question:
Actually, (as I understand it as someone without a master's degree in anything,) the optic nerves also meet and partially cross. To link to a picture on another blog entirely:
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_9GCPAXNB9bA/SSdgedzVeHI/AAAAAAAAAeQ/GASgXFxPXPo/image_thumb%5B3%5D.png?imgmax=800
Neuroanatomy is weird and should not be trusted to be predictable just because some of the weird got sorted.
Posted by: sharky | May 23, 2010 4:57 PM
But that still doesn't answer my question.
Yes, the light from a galaxy 12.8 billion light-years away has been travelling for 12.8 billion years, got that.
But how did the galaxies get to be 12.8 billion light-years away from us only 2.2 billion years after the Big Bang? If the Milky Way and Galaxy X started off in the same place (as particles or waves in the Big Bang) and travelled apart at near light-speed for 2.2 billion years, then the most distant that Galaxy X could have been from us in that time is just under 2.2 billion light-years away (because the Milky Way could be assumed to be the 'rest frame' and Galaxy X's max speed relative to us is .999 lightspeed - so NOT 4.4 billion light years of separation [see? I've had some physics]).
So how did ANYTHING - the Quasars, the most distant galaxies - get to be so far away from us in so little time?
Posted by: Albatross | May 24, 2010 3:09 PM
The green cat is interesting. I googled around a bit and am not sure it is genetic. There was a show on TV with a green kitten. This kitten had been dyed by release of fecal matter or urine (not sure, didn't pay that close attention) in utro, and eventually became all white. I wonder if the blue on baboon males' faces is a pigment or optical effect. I thought blues in fishes were all optical until I dropped some dead salt water aquarium specimens of blue mandarin fish into formaldehyde. The formaldehyde turned quite blue.
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | May 24, 2010 8:09 PM
Is it necessary to have had a pool of L-amino acids for hypothetical early origin-of-life production of proteins? What would be the problem with starting out with a racemic pool of amino acids? Is there a biochemical reason why the earliest proteins couldn't have contained both D and L amino acids? Or if a biochemical catalyst were involved, couldn't the catalyst have selected L-amino acids from a racemic mixture?
Posted by: anon | May 25, 2010 3:27 AM
There is an orthoiodiosupplementation movement among people looking for answers to health problems championed by real MDs such as Dr. Guy Abraham and Dr. David Brownstein. Their studies and practices encourage people to take daily doses of both potassium iodide and elemental iodine in the range of 12.5 - 100 mg. A lot of these supporters can be found on curezone where they decry previous studies about iodine toxicity, i.e. the Wolff-Chaikoff effect. They claim, under the stewardship of Abraham and Brownstein, that the Wolff-Chaikoff study was erroneous and inconclusive and point to dubious claims that Japanese people consume 6 - 12 grams of iodine daily without ill side effects.
Below is a link to the iodine doctors manifesto, which the iodine takers have elevated to a status above the Holy Bible.
http://www.optimox.com/pics/Iodine/pdfs/IOD08.pdf
Please, if you can, tackle the validity of the claims made in this manifesto, "The Iodine Project".
Posted by: anon | May 25, 2010 5:55 PM
How do complex animal behaviors like migration and mating rituals first get established in a species?
Posted by: Practically Uninformed | May 25, 2010 7:51 PM
@20
100%. A dead-shot certainty. Because it HAS happened, obviously.
Never use the fallacy of retrospective improbability again, please.
Posted by: Kevin | May 26, 2010 11:32 PM
What is the optimal temperature of the planet?
Posted by: Global Warming Is A Scam | May 27, 2010 7:43 PM
Oooooh we get to play! :-)
With the green mammal question, why don't animals have chlorophyl and could we -messing around with dna as we do- use it to get energy directly from the sun instead of this whole messy eating->pooping bizz?
It's not easy being green - Kermit
Posted by: plien | May 28, 2010 8:30 AM
Some animals: corals, giant clams, jellyfish, some flatworms, etc. do have chlorophyll in the form of zooxanthellae, symbiotic algae cells. I recall seeing some figures, years ago, which suggested that an active animal would get only a fairly insignificant percentage of necessary energy from photosynthesis.
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | May 29, 2010 4:17 PM
Albatross, I had trouble figuring this out at first as well. But your question assumes that the Milky Way moved away from this other galaxy for 2.2 billion years and then stopped. In fact it kept going. The light caught up eventually, but it took many billions of years.
Posted by: hf | May 30, 2010 12:57 AM
What? No, it has nothing to do with galazies "stopping." Look, the light from a galazy 12.8 billion light years away has been travelling for 12.8 billion years, yes? Right. That galaxy hasn't 'stopped,' I can look and yup, there it is, the galaxy is moving. Great. I'm looking at photos that have been travelling for 12.8 billion years, and they show me a galaxy which at that time was still moving.
But the Universe is supposedly 15 billion years old. And the light from that moving galaxy travelled 12.8 billion years to get here. So that means that the date when that light left that galaxy was 15-12.8=2.2 billion years after the Big Bang.
How did that galaxy get to be 12.8 billion light years away from where the Big Bang happened by the date of 2.2 billion years after the Big Bang? The furthest ANYTHING should have been able to get from wherever the Big Bang took place would have been just under 2.2 billion light years from that point.
So 2.2 billion years after the Big Bang, there should not have been anything 12.8 billion light years away from anything else. In fact, ignoring for the moment the question of how we got to be where we are now, if we look 12.8 billion light years away, we ought to see everything in the universe clumped into a sphere no more than 2.2 billion light years across.
Posted by: Albatross | May 30, 2010 1:21 AM
Often the first sign of mental illness appears with the onset of adolescence. Coincidentally, adolescence also signifies a surge in hormonal production. Is there an established connection between hormones and mental illness or any research into the possibility?
(I am not a scientist, just a reader with a personal interest in mental illness, specifically depression.)
Posted by: sgide | May 30, 2010 2:49 PM
I understand that triples of DNA bases form codons; each of the 64 combinations maps to 20 or so amino acids or a stop codon. I understand too how in transcribing these codons the pattern has to be interpreted in the right one of three frames. Biologists have written programs containing various rules and heuristics to study these DNA sequences had decode what protein a gene is expressing. OK so far?
Now my question. How can it be that it takes a sophisticated program that probably uses extensive "look-ahead" to figure this all out, but cells do it quickly and apparently reliably, and presumably with less look-ahead than our software algorithms.
Thanks
Posted by: Jim B | May 31, 2010 7:09 PM
Each codon codes for an amino acid or is a stop codon. The code is a degenerate code meaning that there are more than one codon which will code for various amino acids. As I recall, there is one amino acid which is coded for by six different codons. Basically the code is read by anticodons on transfer RNA's Ribosomes are involved as are enzymes attaching the proper amino acid to the tRNA. Someone more current than me needs to fill you in on the details, and correct any mistakes I may have made.
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | May 31, 2010 10:20 PM
Redshift vs lookback time: Both redshift (indicating velocity of recession) and lookback time increase with distance. Why doesn't this mean that in the past recession was faster, and now recession is slower (i.e. the expansion is decelerating)?
That the conventional interpretation is the opposite (accelerating expansion) has always baffled me.
Posted by: Poor Richard | June 1, 2010 5:45 AM
What is the significance of the extent to which the universe seems to be self-organizing and self-assembling at all micro-macro scales?
One would think the 2nd law of thermodoohickies (entropy) would have everything falling apart...
Posted by: Poor Richard | June 1, 2010 5:49 AM
Is gravity a form of energy? It performs work. If you "switched off" the gravity of the earth and the moon, the moon would go hurting away under its momentum. Their gravities are bending the moon's trajectory, that is, doing work. If gravity is an energy, why doesn't it run down as work is performed?
Posted by: Poor Richard | June 1, 2010 6:21 AM
Is this endeavour ever going to amount to anything?
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | June 4, 2010 2:01 PM
Is collecting fossils a worthwhile hobby?
Posted by: DevinPimpAssThomas | June 4, 2010 6:48 PM
Would it be possible for scienceblogs to send in a complaint to http://www.xtendmedia.com/, the guys who do the advertising on your site, about the "BeNaughty" ads.
They are very much not in the spirit of XTend's policy which is that the ads will never be "suggestive". I mean seriously - you can't get much more suggestive without outright saying it.
Some of us read these blogs at work you know.
Posted by: iamjustme | June 7, 2010 12:16 AM
After watching the new monster movie Splice over the weekend, I'm really curious about how real bio-tech scientists think of the science-related contents in the film. How much is based on authentic science and how much is purely fantasy? With my rather limited biological education, I can tell the ending result violates the mechanisms of reproductive isolation.
Posted by: antidote | June 7, 2010 3:10 PM
Jim B,
I may be wrong in understanding your question, but I think you're asking about protein folding. When DNA is transcribed into RNA, there are consensus sequences that mark where it will be cut up (into pieces called introns and exons) then some of the pieces (the exons) are spliced back together. We're pretty clear on where that happens (although there are alternate splice patterns). Then this processed RNA gets translated (this is where the reading frame comes into play) into amino acids. This is all fairly predictable.
What's rather difficult to predict is how this string of amino acids folds up to make a protein. There are all sorts of chemical bonds and interactions with cofactors and other proteins that occur before a protein is "ready", as well as dependence on what part of the cell it's folding in and where it will end up. All of these variables can be modeled to predict a protein's final conformation, but my experience and understanding (as a molecular bio phd student) is that these models cannot be assumed to be 100%.
Posted by: This Scientist | June 8, 2010 10:24 AM
1)How can wind surfers / kite boarders can surf up the beach and then turn around and surf back down the beach? EXAMPLE: see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l4O3D27ubk
2)Are there certain wind directions where it is impossible? (I suspect it is not possible if the wind is parallel along the beach.)
3) Is it absolutely necessary to have a keel on the “board”? Otherwise, how do they manage not to be blown on-shore (or out to sea)? Where is the force to stop acceleration on/off-shore coming from?
Posted by: Jerry | June 11, 2010 2:53 AM
What is an electron volt, especially a giga-electron volt, used for? I understand the conversion to kilo-joules, but how and why do we use GeV to identify non-classical sub-atomic particles?
Posted by: lance gritton | June 14, 2010 9:17 AM
I'm just curious to see what the bloggers think the world will be like in the future. 5, 15, 50, 100 years(-ish)?
Posted by: Eevee | June 14, 2010 9:16 PM
question: why not? (saying 'just plain nuts' don't count lol)
The human term 'number' and the concepts of a counting system are descriptions of difference between topologically whole areas. 'Two fish' decribes two discreet entities within a set 'fish'. What we call number theory is the detailed analysis of how areas of difference within topologically whole entities organise efficiently within that entity.
The differences described however are not the result of human numbering, human numbering is a classification of already existing areas of difference within a given set. A number of fish existed, in an awful lot of discreetly different ways, before the human number system. If we insist that the different areas only existed as areas of discreet difference after they were perceived to, we are what is commonly termed 'creationist'.
It is accepted that the universe (by definition) is a topologically whole entity. Physics is the analysis of the areas of disceet differences, and how they interact, combine and divide within the topologically whole universe. In physics these areas of difference, and the way they 'organise' are treated as the results of naturally-occurring phenomena. Physics has always used mathematical
tools to analyse these 'physical' areas of difference, and many words have been written about the miraculous coincidence that the language of mathematics is so well suited to do such analyses.
the relationship between the 'naturally-occurring areas of discreet difference in the topologically whole universe' and 'human numbering system, number theory and mathematics' is the equivalent of the relationship between 'the naturally-occurring force between masses' and what we call 'the theory of gravity'.
relationship N->n
equivalent to
relationship G->g
where the capital letter represents a natural phenomenon and the lower-case represents the human analysis of the natural phenomenon.
The implications are that the naturally-occurring processes that we call 'number theory' will result in the naturally-occurring processes that we call 'quantum mechanics' and further to all other naturally occurring processes that we eventually call 'physics'.
One final line - if the universe IS a topologically whole entity, and everything within that universe is composed of various fractions of the whole: then inflation is in fact division and subdivision. The expansion is in the 'numbers' ie the discreetly different areas within the whole.
it is not a set of sets, which is then a set of set of sets... the set of sets is absolute by definition and any introduction of further sets merely shows subdivision of the original.
It is eminently testable as it predicts that 'number theory' and 'quantum mechanics' will become increasingly converged (ok, all areas of physics... but I say quantum mechanics because it's at the narrow end of the decreasing complexity).
the prediction is: more and more 'coincidences' such as the riemann-zeta function will be 'discovered' at the LHC and other high-energy early-universe particle experiments. (In fact anywhere all naturally-occurring topological wholes being subdivided over time, when analysed mathematically should show evidence's of 'strange' similarities between each other, whether it's in physics, biology or any other field).
Posted by: dan burton | June 15, 2010 9:43 PM
question: why not? (saying 'just plain nuts' don't count lol)
The human term 'number' and the concepts of a counting system are descriptions of difference between topologically whole areas. 'Two fish' decribes two discreet entities within a set 'fish'. What we call number theory is the detailed analysis of how areas of difference within topologically whole entities organise efficiently within that entity.
The differences described however are not the result of human numbering, human numbering is a classification of already existing areas of difference within a given set. A number of fish existed, in an awful lot of discreetly different ways, before the human number system. If we insist that the different areas only existed as areas of discreet difference after they were perceived to, we are what is commonly termed 'creationist'.
It is accepted that the universe (by definition) is a topologically whole entity. Physics is the analysis of the areas of disceet differences, and how they interact, combine and divide within the topologically whole universe. In physics these areas of difference, and the way they 'organise' are treated as the results of naturally-occurring phenomena. Physics has always used mathematical tools to analyse these 'physical' areas of difference, and many words have been written about the miraculous coincidence that the language of mathematics is so well suited to do such analyses.
but instead of numbers being miraculously suited to describing the universe; what WE call number is how the universe 'describes' its differences.
the relationship between the 'naturally-occurring areas of discreet difference in the topologically whole universe' and 'human numbering system, number theory and mathematics' is the equivalent of the relationship between 'the naturally-occurring force between masses' and what we call 'the theory of gravity'.
relationship N->n
equivalent to
relationship G->g
where the capital letter represents a natural phenomenon and the lower-case represents the human analysis of the natural phenomenon.
The implications are that the naturally-occurring processes that we call 'number theory' will result in the naturally-occurring processes that we call 'quantum mechanics' and further to all other naturally occurring processes that we eventually call 'physics'.
One final line - if the universe IS a topologically whole entity, and everything within that universe is composed of various fractions of the whole: then inflation is in fact division and subdivision. The expansion is in the 'numbers' ie the discreetly different areas within the whole.
it is not a set of sets, which is then a set of set of sets... the set of sets is absolute by definition and any introduction of further sets merely shows subdivision of the original.
It is eminently testable as it predicts that 'number theory' and 'quantum mechanics' will become increasingly converged (ok, all areas of physics... but I say quantum mechanics because it's at the narrow end of the decreasing complexity).
the prediction is: more and more 'coincidences' such as the riemann-zeta function will be 'discovered' at the LHC and other high-energy early-universe particle experiments. (In fact anywhere all naturally-occurring topological wholes being subdivided over time, when analysed mathematically should show evidence's of 'strange' similarities between each other, whether it's in physics, biology or any other field).
still with me?
:P
Posted by: dan burton | June 15, 2010 9:47 PM
*looks embarrassed*
sorry for the double post...
Posted by: dan burton | June 15, 2010 9:48 PM
just checking to confirm if this is the same blogger I met last night (June 15) at the "drinking skeptically" meetup. If so, please ruminate on the idea of in 2011, taking some of your best thoughts to the spoken form for a PhACT lecture. Some possible titles that come to mind are: "strange science", "unlocking secrets of the brain", "science and sex".
Eric
Posted by: Eric Krieg | June 16, 2010 8:54 AM
I'm going to try and answer some of the questions I've seen. However, I am by no means an expert in these areas, more an interested layman (with some help from Wikipedia, because, you know, it's never wrong). So, please correct me if I'm wrong.
@1: There are probably a lot of reasons your dishes dry at different rates. First, how well does the water stick to the dish (does a drop hang on or slide right off)? Second, the different materials probably have different heat capacities, meaning that it takes more or less energy to raise the temperature of one material compared to another (e.g. it takes ~4.2 joules to increase a gram of water by 1C, but only 2.4 J to heat a gram of ethanol). This means that something with a high heat capacity will have more thermal energy than something with low heat capacity but at the same temperature (and so could also heat up more drops of water). Also, glass and ceramic are probably both denser than plastic and those dishes are also probably thicker so they won't break. The increased mass could retain more thermal energy that would eventually go into the water drops.
@20: To get an eclipse you just need the Earth, Moon, and Sun to be in the same plane (since the Moon orbits the Earth). That's pretty straight forward if your model of solar system formation relies on a spinning disc. (Actually, the Moon's orbit is a little "out of whack" and inclined by about 5 degrees, so we don't get eclipses every month). The sizes aren't "exactly right" either: the Moon's shadow only covers a tiny portion of the Earth, and the Earth's shadow totally engulfs the Moon.
With respect to the seasons: we don't need the "specific" tilt of the Earth to make seasons, any tilt would do. The Earth's is just where it happens to be.
If one were to use these examples in reference to the anthropic principle, they would be doing a poor job, since neither is very precisely tuned.
@30: You are correct that traditional use of the word "reptile" represents a paraphyletic grouping (i.e. crocodiles are more closely related to birds than to lizards, snakes, or turtles). In my opinion it's not a big deal to casually use reptile in the traditional sense, as long as it's recognized that the most recent common ancestor of the ectothermic reptiles had descendants that we didn't in the past call reptiles (the birds). The textbook I have in front of me unabashedly calls birds reptiles, places Aves as a Subclass under Class Reptilia, and states the "major feature distinguishing the reptilian and mammalian lineages is the number and placement of openings in the skull [for muscle attachments]" (Biological Science, Freeman). Plus, there are big differences among the ectothermic reptiles; for example, crocodilians have a unique heart morphology.
@34 and the 12.8 billion light year galaxies: I really don't know much about theoretical astrophysics, but I don't think the Big Bang was just a giant explosion, where the particles just fly away from each other (i.e. like watching a firework explode). I think it also is thought to have involved the expansion of space itself so that even "stationary" objects would be moving farther apart. I've seen it described as being like a rubber string or yardstick being stretched. The Wikipedia article "Metric expansion of space" was helpful, but includes the understatement, "These details are a frequent source of confusion among amateurs and even professional physicists."
@44: It's true that the chiral bias in life is a puzzle that scientists are working on. Because this question is being studied, we now know of a few mechanisms where a racemic mixture can become non-racemic. In a summary of one of these examples the editor of Nature writes, "the process might explain how a prebiotic world, with left- and right-handed molecules present in equal numbers, could turn into a living world where biomolecules favour one chiral form." (Thermodynamic control of asymmetric amplification in amino acid catalysis, Klussman et al., 2006, Nature).
@54: There are start codons, too, so the correct reading frame can be found. This Scientist makes a good point that it is difficult for us to predict the shape of a protein when all we know is the sequence of amino acids. As far as I know, most protein folding in life occurs just through the chemical bonds and interactions of the amino acids in the protein. There might be a few proteins that assist with folding in some cases, but I don't think it's anything along the lines of a protein that makes all the bends and folds of another protein as it is being formed.
@57: I think it is possible for an organized system to develop spontaneously if it increases the entropy of the universe or allows the rate of increase to increase. Think of a hurricane or tornado: two different air masses (hot and cold) are separated and will mix. The mixing could occur just through diffusion, but can occur much more quickly if there is a system that develops to aid that mixing, so you can get temporary organization that allows the entropy to develop more quickly.
@58: I wouldn't really consider the gravity itself energy. The energy entered the system when the object was lifted in the first place. A ball in the air has potential energy which would "run out" (be transferred) when it hit the ground.
Sorry if some of these answers are wrong.
Posted by: Darlingtonia | June 18, 2010 12:06 AM
@Albatross: I'd suggest first reading this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Big_Bang
Then watching this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo
According to Wikipedia (I'm going to assume that what is written there is factual just because the exact numbers don't matter for the purposes of this discussion.) Current estimates of the universe's age put it at about 13.7 billion years old. The furthest objects that we can see are about 13.2 billion light years away. That means that those structures that they are looking at have been around since only 500 million years after the big bang.
Now, the way you've been thinking about this subject, that would mean that it moved 13.2 billion light years in only 0.5 billion years which just doesn't seem possible right?
What is actually happening is that it moved ~13.2 billion light years away over the course of 13.2 billion years. The light that we're seeing now started traveling away from it 13.2 billion years ago. Now the earth is only 8 billion years old. So we didn't start out moving away from this other thing so long ago. The fact is that right now the relative position of the earth and whatever that distant object is puts us about 13.2 billion light years apart. (don't forget that a light year is a measure of distance, and not of time.
I hope that helps a little. Lawrence Krauss explains it much better.
Posted by: Josh R. | June 18, 2010 6:12 PM
My grasp of cosmology is sort of shaky, so please correct me if there are misconceptions embedded in the questions. If dark matter neither emits not reflects nor blocks visible light, but does bend it (contributes to lensing), how does it relate to dark energy, if at all? Does gravity overwhelm dark energy, or is it just that dark energy is measured in megaparsecs, and gravitationally bound systems are too close together for observable expansion? It is understandable that expansion increases with distance (if 72 kilometers per second per megaparsec, then 174 km/sec/2Mpc, and so on) but how does expansion accelerate over time? By "how" I just mean how can it be expressed in English, not "how" in the sense of the mechanism or cause. Last, galaxies whose light we see from the deep past: do they exist now someplace else, or is their existence confined to the space and time in which we see them?
Posted by: Jon | June 19, 2010 10:43 AM
There's been a certain genetics problem that's been bugging me and few other people for a couple of years now. Anne McCaffrey wrote one of the first positive alien/human encounter stories in her Dragonriders of Pern stories back in the sixties-seventies. The books are pure fantasy with practically no redeemable science fiction brain-tickler fodder (as compared to Asmiov or Heinlein), we know this, however, it does try to pretend like it's sciency at times, mentioning things like dragons (and all Pernese lifeforms) as having triple-helixed DNA. Our conundrum are the dragons. They are basically described as one species with five caste-like representatives, distinguished by color, size and fertility, two of which are always female and three of which are always male.
The females include the Golds, which are the largest -and rarest- of all dragons and fertile; and the Greens are the smallest -and most common, they are half of the global population- of all dragons and non-fertile. The males include Bronzes, which are the largest -and rarest- males and fertile; Browns, which are the second -twice to a third more common than Bronzes-largest, but always smaller than Bronzes and always larger than Blues and fertile; and Blues, which are the smallest -and most common, we calculated them to be 30%-35% of the population- males , but are always larger than Green females, it is unknown if they are fertile or not as none have ever been documented as mating with anything other than Greens (because they are not large enough to overtake Golds in mating flights), which are infertile.
Golds are highly fertile and their clutches produce all of the other colors. However Gold/Bronze matings are the only ones that can produce new Golds, of which only one will appear in a clutch of eggs (which numbers between 15-40 per batch). Gold/Brown matings never produce Golds, but will produce a very small number of Bronzes. Gold/Blue matings are completely unknown and considered impossible. However, it is a mentioned known that half of every clutch, be the sire Bronze or Brown, will hatch out as Greens. The only knowns we have are: Golds are 1% of the global population with Greens as 50% of the global population, based on hatching rarity.
In discussions with others, we've basically agreed that Pernese dragons transmit their gender/color information through trihybrid genetic recombination, following some kind of 9:3:3:1 pattern. However, none of us are geneticists nor really in that field, outside of some Introductory Genetics courses in college and following research papers online, we don't really have the means or equation knowledge to sort this out, but we've done independent study on gene linkage and genetic polymorphism, but we still haven't gotten anywhere conclusive, as the models are based on a binary chromosome system. Can a professional do better at figuring out a theoretical geno/phenotype model for Pernese dragons?
(I've done other calculations on dragon population growth over a 50-year Pass cycle, if that information would be considered useful, anyone is free to ask for it.)
Posted by: Mishal | June 19, 2010 2:26 PM
Photons of light and shorter wavelength radiation are regarded as 'quantised' and this seems logical, as they are radiated by electrons jumping between energy levels. However, longer wavelength radiation is often generated by electronic oscillators, which operate without any obvious discrete jumps in the energy levels of electrons. Are such waves still 'quantised' in the same way as light?
Posted by: Terry Platt | June 19, 2010 5:24 PM
Mishal, no answer for you. Perhaps the first question would be how many sets of chromosomes do dragons have, and how do they carry out meiosis and fertilization. It might be that particular chromosomes end up in polar bodies and never make it to the zygote. In some combinations, the egg might not be fertilized but rather just activated by sperm. One also wonders how sex determination is achieved. Perhaps some sort of epigenetic thing happens as well.
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | June 20, 2010 6:49 PM
I have found some hugh cretaceous period teeth from a river once a very deep ocean. They are also possibly older than cretaceous. They are bigger than Megladon and have turned to rock due to diagenisis. I am trying to ID them for science purposes. I have a couple of different species to ID if anyone can help. verde33333@aol.com
Posted by: Linda Passarella | June 22, 2010 12:17 AM
I have found some huge cretaceous period teeth from a river once a very deep ocean. They are also possibly older than cretaceous. They are bigger than Megladon and have turned to rock due to diagenisis. I am trying to ID them for science purposes. I have a couple of different species to ID if anyone can help. verde33333@aol.com
Posted by: Linda Passarella | June 22, 2010 12:17 AM
I have found some huge cretaceous period teeth from a river once a very deep ocean. They are also possibly older than cretaceous. They are bigger than Megladon and have turned to rock due to diagenisis. I am trying to ID them for science purposes. I have a couple of different species to ID if anyone can help. verde33333@aol.com
Posted by: LP | June 22, 2010 12:19 AM
What are brainwaves?
Posted by: The Internet | June 22, 2010 8:43 PM
Why does the inside of the human skull have really sharp blades of bone sticking out? Seems like there should be evolutionary pressures against it.
Are chromosomes in a cell, all linked together in one long chain, or are they free floating seperate pieces?
Posted by: Sleeper | June 23, 2010 12:54 PM
A simplistic answer is that chromosomes in a cell are separate entities. One counter example is European hawkweed, which has a pair of ring chromosomes, i.e. all chromosomes in each set joined together. Mendel was going to work on hawkweed, but got diverted into administration. This is fortunate as hawkweed would not follow Mendel's law of segregation. Another counter example, blackstripe topminnow has 40 chromosomes; sister species blackspotted topminnow has 48. Hybrids are fertile (to some extent). Some of the big chromosomes in the blackstripe topminnow are homologous to two of the blackspotted topminnow's small chromosomes placed end to end; thus the hybrids are able to carry out meiosis and produce viable gametes.
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | June 24, 2010 1:29 PM
Thank you. I was never able to find an answer for that. Following on then, is the numbering of the different chromosomes arbitrary in that they don't come in a particular order or does it reflect some sort of actual structure?
Also if they aren't ordered can you tell them apart visually?
Posted by: Sleeper | June 24, 2010 3:17 PM
As I recall, when we did karyotypes by looking at stained specimens with a light microscope, the chromosomes were numbered from largest to smallest. I think there are all kinds of modern techniques to tell which chromosome you are looking at, not just a matter of relative size of color stained blobs.
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | June 24, 2010 5:27 PM
Richard Feynman claimed that he could recognize if someone had touched a book by smelling it. Is that really possible, and how many people possess such ability?
Posted by: eol | June 25, 2010 3:29 PM
Richard Feynman claimed that he could recognize if someone had touched a book by smelling it. Is that really possible, and how many people possess such ability?
Posted by: eol | June 25, 2010 3:32 PM
Hi all;
Why does the inside of the human skull have really sharp blades of bone sticking out? Seems like there should be evolutionary pressures against it.
Are chromosomes in a cell, all linked together in one long chain, or are they free floating seperate pieces?
Mary lou...
Posted by: saç ekimi | June 26, 2010 6:40 AM
Huh?
Posted by: Sleeper | June 26, 2010 12:52 PM
@sleeper
Why does the inside of the human skull have really sharp blades of bone sticking out? Seems like there should be evolutionary pressures against it.
Off the top of my head (pardon the pun) most of the bits sticking into the inside of the skull (the crista galli comes to mind) are a benefit as they are there to support particularly fragile bits of the brain. They don't damage the brain when the head suffers a collision because of the cushioning effect of the meninges (which stretch down into cebrebral falx) and cerebrospinal fluid.
Posted by: Neuromancy | June 27, 2010 10:03 AM
@The Internet
Brainwaves are the sum of the electrical activity of lots of neurons. The activity usually falls into rhythms of different frequencies, or 'bands' which can be used to indicate a particular state of wakefulness or attention. They are designated by Greek letters. For more information, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eeg
Posted by: Neuromancy | June 27, 2010 10:09 AM
Hello
Is there a maximum temperature?
I've always wondered that. If the temperature is a measurement of the average kinetic energy of the particles in a substance and the special theory of relativity postulated that the velocity of light is constant in empty space and nothing can move faster than the light, is there a maximum temperature?
Thanks ScienceBlogs
From Perú
Sergio Landeo
Posted by: Sergio Landeo | June 27, 2010 11:52 PM
I'd like to see someone wrangle this: how to get real probability outcomes from the nebulous, hand-waving concept of "measure" applied to the splitting of states in the Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. (And it's not the other, formal concept of "probability measure" either.) It's part of the attempt to understand how we go from combined waves that include all possible outcomes (like alive and dead cat) but we only see one outcome when we look.
After all, say there are two superposed states and then they separate through whatever magic you prefer ... Let's say one wave A has amplitude 0.8 and wave B, amplitude 0.6. That corresponds to 64:36 probability. But there are two waves, and if each "split self" follows each one, then I have 50:50 chance of seeing outcome A versus outcome B.
Many attribute a mysterious property of "measure" to each of the two (or more) branches that is somehow equivalent to real probability or proportion. It sounds like a snow-job. I don't see how to get it without a genuine large set of worlds (and then, neither an arbitrary number nor Aleph null is satisfactory.) BTW see my link and reflect on my tough take-down of MWI.
Posted by: Neil B | June 28, 2010 4:00 PM
It possible that some kinds of matter might not be receptive to electromagnetic fields (assuming their atoms used a different method to keep themselves together, like using a different kind of field as a substitute)?
Is it possible that there could be other kinds of fields aside from what we're already aware of (such as the electromagnetic field) that we haven't discovered because the materials we have to work with aren't receptive to them?
Posted by: Gwen | June 29, 2010 12:56 AM
Question, which has bugged my oh so short life to this point. If walkie talkies radios are able with ever increasing ease to communicate locally, why dose everyone not own many sets for local trips to the shops, bank, park or for walks rather than owning expensive mobile phones? It could bring back a sense of local community if we all chat around our community, our schools our churches etc... Why is it so antisocial to use walkie talkies rather than mobiles? Where is the science in that?
My walkie talkies URL- http://www.walkietalkiesradios.net
Posted by: J Harris | June 30, 2010 9:01 PM
Hi,
I have a genetics question. I read recently that we are really close to being able to convert human bone marrow stem cells into sperm cells. Apparently males already create sperm in the testes using these bone marrow stem cells, and this process would allow it to happen outside of the body.
Say this technique gets perfected, and say it works equally well for women as for men. Given the ability to produce sperm, women could then father children with other women; all such offspring would be female, of course, because of the lack of any Y chromosome from the female sperm donor.
My question is this: given that this technique works, and if a women were to use this to *fertilize herself*... well, then, what would the relationship be between that woman and her offspring?
Mother and daughter, of course, but also *sisters,* since they share the same genes from both of the mother's parents; the offspring could be considered the genetic child of her own grandparents. Yet by my initial analysis the two of them would be *more* related than two normal sisters (50%), yet not so related as identical twins or clones (100%). Could they be considered half-twins?
Posted by: Scott LaMorte | July 3, 2010 3:54 AM
Wouldn't this be similar to results from a self fertilizing hermaphrodite; Kryptolebias (or Rivulus) marmoratus, for example? Because all the offspring's genes came from the self fertilizing mother, I think the genetic correspondence would be close to 100%, depending on how heterozygous the mother was. The offspring would have lost heterozygosity at some (half?) of the mother's heterozygous loci.
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | July 3, 2010 4:42 PM
What is phytotherapy??
Is it quackery like homeotherapy, or is it real medicine?
Thanks in advance.
Posted by: Frank | July 3, 2010 10:09 PM
There seems to be an extreme amount of ants this year. Everyone I know has had intractable infestations. My house is overrun with ants as are all the homes of my neighbors and friends of mine in other communities. What is the cause of this?
Posted by: Ginny | July 4, 2010 11:05 PM
Where can I go for authentic scientific information about real scientific and medical questions in fields that are highly commercialized and throughly tainted by many false claims and ideologies, like hair loss, weight loss, the true effect of recreational and medicinal drugs, ect? Basically I want to inform myself with facts about things that can have a real impact on my day-to-day life but I know pretty much everyone talking about these things is either trying to make a fast buck or grind a political ax.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 5, 2010 10:57 PM
I'm fascinated by Albatross's question. I think the answer has to do with the fact that the spacetime itself is expanding. If the light was just traveling through a neutral space I think you would be right, but it's not. The light is traveling through a space which itself is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. So something that would have been only 4 billion light years ways from where earth was 8 billion years ago could now be 12 billion miles away (from where the earth is now - not from where the earth was 8 billion years ago) due to the expansion of spacetime itself. Bear in mind that we are moving away from the other galaxy at an ever-increasing rate AND it is moving away from us just as fast (and always getting faster too).
So astrophysicists don't know why this is happening. Gravity as we know it doesn't explain it. So they call it "Dark Energy" The correct definition of the term "Dark Energy" is "we don't know what the hell is causing everything to move away from everything else faster and faster all the time."
So there you go. It's all blowing apart faster than we ever thought possible and we have no idea why. And it keeps blowing apart faster and faster (not slowing down like a regular explosion would). That's the current state of astrophysics with regard to the data showing an expanding universe. And there is no neutral space for it to blow apart into. The spacetime itself is ballooning in all possible directions. This major migraine stuff we're talking about here.
The question of "where" the big bang occurred is a red herring. It doesn't matter where in the universe the big bang occurred because the whole universe was inside the Big Bang.
Posted by: yogi-one | July 8, 2010 4:30 AM
Here's a question. Please correct any incorrect assumptions in my premise.
I understand that if a star accretes enough mass, it becomes a neutron star, with its mass being crushed into some sort of undifferentiated neutron soup. Give the extreme gravity, I assume it is a perfect sphere (unless it is rotating at extreme speed).
If mass is further increased, at some point light can no longer escape and the object becomes a black hole.
Here's what I don't understand:
Is it still a spherical object? I have heard that black holes, or singularities, are "infinitely small points." But why would that be? Why would it not still be just a super-dense spherical object of some size? For example, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. Could that not be solar system-sized ball of black hole material?
In other words, at the point when a body's escape velocity exceeds the speed of light, does some related property kick in that reduces its mass to this "singularity?"
A secondary question:
Could there be different densities of black holes? For example, could a regular old black hole be "fluffier" that the supermassive ones at the core of galaxies?
Posted by: Kevpod | July 9, 2010 10:39 AM
To whom it may concern:
Subject: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and Exon Duplication
My grandson (Grant W. Meermann) has the rarer mutation causing Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) (duplication of exons). As a result, I've developed a personal interest in genetic research. As I understand there have been no naturally occurring models in animals that we know of with exon duplications have been found. I have been having trouble with the adding of exons to our genetic make-up ever sense I first heard of deplication and my concerns then increased by hearing it has not yet been found in nature. We know genetic mutations can be beneficial in nature, and maybe exon duplication would have a purpose in nature but, the number of occurrences would be way below what we are finding in humans at this time (1 in 35,000 males) and maybe more we are not finding. If exon duplications were ever able to be reproduced and passed down to subsequent generations, it could completely change the genetic make-up, making the gene forever non-compatible with the species from which it mutated. Since exon duplications have not been found in nature, there may be a self-defense mechanism built into the gene that inhibits it from destroying its own uniformity. Since exon duplication have only been found in humans so far should this make us wonder if humans are doing something, that animals are not? This leads me to the conclusion that exon duplications could possibly be a new phenomenon that started less than 4 or 5 generations ago. This could be tested by looking at some tissue samples of persons whom died of MD over 90yrs ago. We could also look at families who have exon duplication from generations back and see when they started. Since our knowledge of the genetic basis of MD only goes back to 1986 and reliable information does not go back even that for, this could not only be an important finding for DMD research, but could have significant implications to the genetic future of the rest of us. Every four hours there is a child born in our world with exon duplication DMD so without hesitation we need to check this out.
What may be causing exon duplication:
Since the 1920s, we have been manufacturing plastics with higher quality and quantity. Our use of polymers in just about everything we consume has led to the finding of plastic-associated chemicals in the blood of just about every human on earth. There is a synthetic hydrogen bond (where at least two hydrogen atoms are squeezed in the space of one) used in the manufacture of plastic that is chemically identical to the natural hydrogen bond found in our genes. The BIG difference is that the synthetic bond is at least twice as strong. This synthetic bond could cause ill effects in the mitosis and meiosis of cell division. With a bond this strong in the meiosis stage, it may not have a clean split when the cell divides, pulling over exons from the other side. This would be like ripping apart a sheet with a seam in the middle, leaving some parts of the sheet from the opposite side of the seam still attached to the wrong side after the rip. In other-words, we may be on a molecular level, gluing our genes together at the dividing point with super-glue so when the gene tries to divide the bond is so strong exons are being pulled over from the other side of the gene. Also we must look at the possibility that the wetting agent that is secreted from the helicase to make separation uneventful has no effect on a synthetic hydrogen bond. Without a clean split, you could have abnormalities that will be passed on to the next generation. We could have an epidemic of genetic diseases in the future. Since only four or five generations have used plastics, the problem would not be obvious at this point. We have an obligation to society to find out if these polymers have caused an increase in genetic abnormalities. The answers can be found by studying mutations of human genes before the 1920s and this can be done at a very low cost. These studies would also cover environmental issues that materialized in the last century. If man’s environmental toxins have altered God’s will, then we have an obligation to stop future damage and fix the damage we may have caused.
If you are aware of any research that would either confirm or negate my concerns, I would appreciate any information you have.
Sincerely,
Dennis R. Kessler
344 LCR 759
Groesbeck, TX 76642
dennis@pufflon.com
254 729-8527
Posted by: Dennis Ray Kessler | March 6, 2011 10:23 PM
i would love someone to see my map of the universe and tell me what they think. my name is the link to my blog
Posted by: mandy | March 14, 2011 11:29 PM
Question: what about page 2.71?
Posted by: Duy | March 22, 2011 7:56 PM
Why are so many paleontologists and archaeologists such charlatans?
Read pro-evolutionist Bill Bryson's best seller "A Short History of Nearly Everything" where on almost every other page he exposes the charlatans, schemers, and knaves, in the sciences. Especially read the entry on the ultimate arrogance of The American Museum of Natural History life-sized African diorama with two hairy homonids based on a set of footprints!
Posted by: Michael | April 5, 2011 7:50 PM
Since exon duplication have only been found in humans so far should this make us wonder if humans are doing something, that animals are not? This leads me to the conclusion that exon duplications could possibly be a new phenomenon that started less than 4 or 5 generations ago. This could be tested by looking at some tissue samples of persons whom died of MD over 90yrs ago. The correct definition of the term "Dark Energy" is "we don't know what the hell is causing everything to move away from everything else faster and faster all the time.
Posted by: williamsmith114 | April 15, 2011 11:12 PM
if the photon is an electromagnetic wave, why isn't it charged ? I never quite understood the disconnect between electricity (real objects like electrons and protons, with sizes, that have pos or neg charge) and the neutral pointlike photon that has no charge....I guess I missed it in basic physics
Posted by: ezra abrams | June 9, 2011 6:37 PM
I get alot of weird questions from friends and otheir people but this one just stuck out to me. In genetic splicing and body reconstruction is it possible for instance a human to get cat ears genetically attached and replace their human ears and the cat ears to be functional as ears.
Posted by: Marcus | June 13, 2011 6:46 PM
These 7 questions seem to go to the heart of the warming scare since if any of them cannot be answered in a way that supports alarmism then there is no case to answer. Indeed if # 3,4,5,6 & 7 cannot be answered honestly and supportively the case that deliberate fraud is taking place and everybody knowledgeable on the alarmist side knows it seems proven. For some reason Mr Mann has declined to answer them privately (as indeed has every other warming alarmist asked, scientist, politician or journalist):
1 - Do you accept Professor Jones' acknowledgement that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995?
2 - Do you accept that the rise in CO2 has improved crop growth by around 10% & that the consequent influence on world hunger is more beneficial than any currently detectable destructive action of alleged global warming?
3 - Do you accept that the Hockey Stick, as originally presented by Mann and the IPCC contained calculations that were inconsistent with good science and that Mann's refusal to make calculations and algorithms available for checking were inconsistent with scientific principle?
4 - Do you accept that many claims from people and organisations on the alarmist side, from Al Gore's claim that South Sea islands had already been abandoned due to rising sea levels and Pachauri's claim that any dispute that the Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2025 was "voodoo" were untrue and insupportable even at the time.
5 - Do you accept that there are a number of geoengineering solutions which arithmetically can be shown would work (including stratospheric dust, the geritol solution or even just replacing CO2 burning with nuclear power) which would work at a small fraction of the cost of the war against fire, or in the case of nuclear, at negative cost?
6 - Do you accept that the refusal of alarmists to denounce fraud or telling of obvious untruths. on their side, or even its active support or covering up, detracts from the credibility of the entire movement?
7 - Of the alleged "consensus" - can you name 2 scientists, out of the roughly 60%, worldwide who are not paid by the state, who support catastrophic warming & if not can you explain how something can be a consensus when no member of a subset of 60% of the alleged consenting, consent?
I regret to say that the trend on "scienceblogs" has, so far been towards personal attacks and censorship. Anyone with a knowledge of science will know that these are not included within the principles of science (though, except for they are founding principles of fascism) and incompatible to any claim to respect science.
I await seeing if any accurate and supportive answer, or indeed 7, is possible.
Posted by: Neil Craig | June 16, 2011 3:45 AM
I am so confused. Some people say there is ghost and some say there is not. Is ghost really there? And what about the presence of gods and goddess?
Posted by: Sindhuliya prashamsha | June 25, 2011 2:56 AM
The current medication approval financing system (Patent) assures that only patentable compounds (synthetic not natural) can be financed. Thus no substance that is extracted from a plant can receive patent coverage, and therefore, cannot get financing for a proper clinical trial. Thus no natural extraction can be tested, unless a government chooses to fund a study.
Is no evidence evidence of no effect.
If no credible evidence is possible, is that evidence that no positive effect is possible.
Is there a way to evaluate traditional (witch doctor) stories.
Yes there is a lot of Woo.
Is it all false ???
Posted by: O.A.Wehmanen | June 30, 2011 2:08 PM
So astrophysicists don't know why this is happening. Gravity as we know it doesn't explain it. So they call it "Dark Energy" The correct definition of the term "Dark Energy" is "we don't know what the hell is causing everything to move away from everything else faster and faster all the time."
Posted by: Arkadaslik | July 3, 2011 3:21 PM
thank you for taking time to read my question this is my first time doing this. my first question is simple compare to my others so here i go what is the difference between hate an fear thank you.
Posted by: kevin rodriguez | July 5, 2011 5:59 PM
timeless, if a lunar or solar eclipse has strange effects on the earth an all creatures on earth. will the great magnetism of all planets an the sun line up in a great eclipse maybe change or even mutate life as we know it. thank you
Posted by: Anonymous | July 5, 2011 6:30 PM
timeless, if math is a universal language why is no one speaking to us an is it maybe we are speaking sign language to a race of city like beings no time or interest in talking to a spoil an lost creature
Posted by: kevin rodriguez | July 5, 2011 7:56 PM
timeless, if any animal or just monkeys which i believe all animals have a degree of intelligence where to gain our level of intelligence do you believe they would forgive the cruelty we have show their species an the cruelty we have done to our planet thank you
Posted by: kevin rodriguez | July 6, 2011 7:06 PM
At lightspeed time stands still. But photons travels slower than lightspeed through water. Is light affected by time, do photons age at all?
Posted by: Ron | August 19, 2011 12:36 AM
What is the mechanism by which the japan 9.1 quake may have caused the earthquakes within the US continental shelf: CO and VA on 8/23/11?
Posted by: r | August 23, 2011 4:51 PM
Can K 9's visual perception only sense 3 dimentionally?
Posted by: R. Pepin | September 15, 2011 9:32 AM
Why does Dr Lisa Sanders refer to the phrenic nerve (the nerve that controls the diaphragm) as the vagus nerve? Back in the 20th century when I studied anatomy it was surely the phrenic.
Posted by: Dr Bob Shirley | October 3, 2011 4:42 PM
I have a doubt in physics.Consider a setup which i am about to explain now:
A circular track of radius r having a point light source at its center.
A plane reflective mirror with its reflective side facing the center (always) and going around on the track with an angular velocity say v.
The radius of the track and the angular velocity of the mirror are such that the tangential velocity of the mirror comes out be 0.6 times the velocity of light.
My doubt is what will be the tangential velocity of the image of the light source?
Posted by: Chinmaya Hajare | October 7, 2011 3:20 AM
i have asked a question but my comment is not appearing on it, ok let me ask again that why the scienceblogs.com is so popular? what is the reason behind this?
Posted by: Global Technology Blog | January 12, 2012 9:37 AM
well global case is very simple that all you have to do is to get interesting posts on your blog and people will follow you and your site will also be getting popular day bay day, simple isin't it ?
Posted by: Technogies | January 13, 2012 12:07 AM
hold on techno i want to add here that only content is not enough to determine the success there are lot more issues which should also be present like PR, Meta , links and many more......
Posted by: Surgical Blog | January 13, 2012 12:12 AM
Have you ever thought about including a little bit more than just your articles? I mean, what you say is valuable and all. However think about if you added some great pictures or video clips to give your posts more, "pop"! Your content is excellent but with pics and clips, this website could definitely be one of the greatest in its field. Amazing blog!
Posted by: Hot Deals | February 1, 2012 12:59 AM
Have you ever thought about including a little bit more than just your articles? I mean, what you say is valuable and all.
Posted by: afrika mangosu | February 7, 2012 4:09 AM
A patient is given a test for antinuclear antibodies, and the test is positive in a high titer (1:2560). However, the patient tests negative for all of the connective tissue disease antibodies. Does this mean:
A. The ANA test is a "false positive", there are no antinuclear antibodies actually present
B. The patient has antinuclear antibodies (whether known or undiscovered), just not the antibodies that were tested for
Thank you.
Posted by: Julie | February 29, 2012 4:43 PM
ok, may I just ask this: why is it that when I like get excited about something, my mind causes me to either forget something that was in my mind before, or it causes me to remember something that was in it. I have looked on brain connection's website at all kinds of information about how and why the brain behaves the way it does, and this is just one thing I thought could be a good question to answer. Well, thanks for your help and time. Bye.
Posted by: Kyle Marshall | March 8, 2012 5:03 PM
Is there any unit to measure the venom?
Posted by: siddhartha kumar munet | March 14, 2012 9:04 AM
I hope this makes some sense:
How does evolutionary theory explain what the favored result of natural selection, presumably probabilistic, will be for any individual who is born with a combination of spontaneous genetic mutations that result in differential positive or negative adaptive outcomes? For example, what would happen if an individual were born with a combination of superior vision but less efficient respiration rate? I get that for each individual, the selective pressure would favor, even marginally, the mutation with the net beneficial effect--in this case, probably, vision over oxidation. But what happens in the species overall if the next person has superior vision and a MUCH less efficient respiration rate so that the gene for superior vision in that individual does not get selected? Evolution would creep and creep, if it happened at all.
Posted by: Harris Lirtzman | March 15, 2012 11:07 AM
Kuyruklar oluşturan metrobüsler, trafik polislerinin yönlendirmesiyle tek yönlü olarak yoluna devam edebildi. Aracından inen vatandaşlar, otobüsü sıkıştığı çelik halatlardan kurtarmak için uzun süre uğraş verdi. Vatandaşların yardımıyla sıkıştığı yerden kurtarılan otobüs, olay yerine gelen çekici vasıtasıyla kaldırıldı
Posted by: islami sohbet | March 30, 2012 7:35 AM
it make me too confused to think which groups of organisms are biochemically more complicated; plants or animals.
Posted by: Shahid Hussain | April 3, 2012 8:59 AM
You are always giving so many new ideas and I hope it will continue in the future. That"s perfect, your words are really easy to perceive.
Posted by: wordpress coupons | April 9, 2012 1:24 AM
After watching the new monster movie Splice over the weekend, I'm really curious about how real bio-tech scientists think of the science-related contents in the film. How much is based on authentic science and how much is purely fantasy? With my rather limited biological education, I can tell the ending result violates the mechanisms of reproductive isolation.
Posted by: How to Uninstall on Mac | April 17, 2012 4:15 PM
It is said that the Japanese Astronomy Observatory has found that in next May there will be two magnetic anodes and cathodes on the Sun, which means that it's very likely that our climate will be greatly affected. They predict that there will be another small "Ice Age" starting in May,2013. Is this really very likely? And if it is, what are some negative influences it will bring to the earth? And how negative will they be?
Posted by: Poyie | April 25, 2012 4:56 AM
What is a good definition of science?
Posted by: Max | April 30, 2012 2:39 PM
this is for a class assignment i want to know what is a good denfintion of science? or what is your definition of science?
Posted by: mo | April 30, 2012 2:44 PM